This is a deep dive of a lot of issues I’ve seen with the Fab search algorithm. All examples given were using incognito browsers.
Too Much Emphasis on Exact Title Phrase Match
This is the first major issue. Fab seems to heavily emphasize the exact search words use, in the order they were used, with nothing in between.
For example when searching “Stylized Environment”, titles such as “Stylized Open World Environment” or “Stylized City Environment” will be punished. Even “Stylized Environments” will be punished for adding an ‘s’ at the end.
Let’s take a look and see if we can find my stylized bamboo environment by searching for “Stylized Environment”
Here’s the first page. As you can see every single result (except one?) has a perfect 1:1 match with the search phrase.
It’s not for a couple of pages before suddenly we transition out of perfect matches into others…
And finally if you keep scrolling, coming in 97th place, is my Stylized Trees - Bamboo Nature & Environment pack:
You can also see the example here of someone having their “Stylized Environments Volume 3” pushed so far down for not simply calling it “Stylized Environment Volume 3” Also the amount of less relevant stuff showing up at this point is concerning.
The real issue here is, not only is this frustrating and not serving up actually relevant results, but it means the search system can be “gamed” by sellers trying to optimize search phrases (more on that later.) It’s going to turn into Amazon where you want to buy a can opener and the product title is “The Original GORILLA GRIP Heavy Duty Stainless Steel Smooth Edge Manual Can Opener and Bottle Openers, Soft Ergonomic Handle, Oversized Handheld Easy Turn Knob, Multifunctional Kitchen Tool, Black”
Not Enough Randomness
The results don’t seem to include much randomness. Here is a search for “Low Poly Industrial”
And here I search again a few days later:
The results are very similar- the first two rows are the exact same products.
This might be subjective, but I think there should be a bit more of a random seed that shuffles the results slightly every day. This gives newer and smaller creators a chance to have their products seen and get some early purchases/reviews. Currently it is very deterministic, so if you aren’t in a good spot, you’ll never be in a good spot.
Gaming the System
To put some of this to the test let’s see if we can game the system and get a top result for “Low Poly Industrial” Don’t have any low poly industrial assets? No worries, let’s try it with my Bamboo pack. Keep in mind, this is one my less popular products and doesn’t even have five reviews after a year.
Wow, #1 spot, it was that easy! All I had to do was not include any other words between or around. If you think I’m making this up, search for yourself. I’ll leave the product titled like this for another few days just to prove the point.
Low Priority Tags/Description
On the flip side of titles having too much emphasis, there is not enough focus on everything else. Even though I renamed my bamboo title, the tags still include:
And the description has a lot of key words:
I’m not even going to search “Stylized Environment” anymore, that’s too vague. Let’s look for “Stylized Trees” Hopefully the tags and description will help?
Unfortunately the product is now in 598th place, farther than anyone will ever scroll to find some trees. Obviously this is an extreme case with the title being useless, but still serves a point that a poorly worded title shouldn’t have such an effect, considering I’m being placed behind so many things that aren’t stylized or trees!
The tags and words in the description should player a stronger role. Even words being used in reviews should have a big impact! If I don’t include “stylized grass” anywhere in my title, tags, or description, but people keep buying and reviewing on how much they love my stylized grass, that should give it some boost when searching “Stylized Grass” This would however… require open text reviews again… 
Glitches
While looking for my Bamboo just above, did you notice the two Camels? Why’d it show up twice?
I’ve noticed this happen sometimes. The amount of space in the results is precious and shouldn’t be wasted with duplicates.
We’ve been talking about the Relevancy search so far, as that’s what is default and most used, but apparently the sort by Newest is also a bit broken and not in order. Let’s look for the newest “Stylized Rocks”
Some products are randomly pushed further down. Also, not a single result here is a stylized rock. There are some stylized stuff, and some rocks, and also a lot of stuff that is totally different.
Rating Impact
I didn’t have any pictures/experiments with this one, but I think products that are well-received should have a small boost (not too large to encourage review farming), but also sellers who, as a whole, have good standing and good reviews on all products should be rewarded for consistently adding good quality content to the marketplace.
In closing, I’ve noticed the Fab search algorithm just feels very unprofessional and not great at serving up relevant results. It hurts buyers in missing out on potentially great products they could use, and it hurts sellers if you chose the slightly wrong title phrasing and never get sales.
I know this is on the Fab Roadmap and marked as In Progress, but I feel like some changes have already been made that didn’t really help, and want to bring this up so hopefully more and better adjustments can be made.
We need an algorithm that actually takes into account tags, description, and open text review discussion. There should be some randomness (especially for new products and smaller sellers) to give people a chance to be seen. Consistently high-quality sellers with good reviews and positive track record should be rewarded.
For some more reading, check out this other recent posts about the Fab Search:
Suggestions for Improving Search Functionality - General / Feedback & Requests - Epic Developer Community Forums
When will the search work better? - General / Feedback & Requests - Epic Developer Community Forums
Why is FAB search so messed up - General / Feedback & Requests - Epic Developer Community Forums
searching for assets - General / Feedback & Requests - Epic Developer Community Forums
, must have taken some time. Anyhow…
